


Catch My Breath

by Carmenlire



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hopeful Ending, Introspection, M/M, References to Depression, Sad Alec Lightwood, Sad with a Happy Ending, Suicidal Thoughts, Supportive Magnus Bane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:28:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21740953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmenlire/pseuds/Carmenlire
Summary: Alec’s a big boy. A grown up. He pays off his credit card every month and manages to eat a vegetable at least once a week and sure, he may want to die but it’s nothing he can’t handle, nothing he hasn’t been handling for awhile now.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 29
Kudos: 269





	Catch My Breath

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for references to depression and suicidal ideation.

His breath leaves him in a steady sigh that’s as heavy as it is chronic. His face is cast in shadows, mostly green this late but once in a while he slows to a stop and stares unseeing at red.

Work had been a nightmare today. A part of him thinks that it’s always a nightmare while most of him is just glad he’s done for another eleven hours.

Eleven hours where he doesn’t have to think. He doesn’t have to smile at customers who ask questions but don’t listen for the answers, where he feels like he’s always behind no matter how furiously he works, where he wishes he could have one goddamn moment to himself without his coworker demanding he be present for her never-ending, useless diatribe.

He doesn’t have to be present at home. 

It’s a comfort wrapped in a threat.

Because at home it’s silent. Away from work, he sometimes wonders that he doesn’t just disintegrate into the nothing he feels on an hourly basis. At work, there are appearances that must be kept but once his shift ends, his strings are cut and he’s starting to wonder how many more mornings he can tie himself back up into a convincing visage of adulthood.

That’s a worry for tomorrow, though. For now, he has the whole night-- a few hours-- to decompress before he does it all again.

Only four more days until the weekend, he tells himself and his eyes glint in a mockery of relief.

The highway isn’t busy tonight. It never is when he works a late shift and he feels alone and a little lonely as he speeds toward home, toward sanctuary.

Flexing his hands on the steering wheel, he thinks about dinner. He hasn’t had anything but coffee all day and nothing sounds good, appetizing, worth a damn.

He hasn’t eaten more than a few cookies in a couple of days but his stomach isn’t hollow. It isn’t anything. He has groceries at home but those need to be prepped. They need to be cleaned and washed and cut and cooked. Jace has him on this asinine diet and all the fast food near him that’s still open sure as hell doesn’t fit his brother’s meal plan.

He can’t find it in himself to give a fuck.

There’s a fast food place a couple of miles from him. He’s never been to the one near his apartment but he has a general idea of where it’s at and nowhere to be.

He lets himself acknowledge that he doesn’t want to go home. He doesn’t want to go straight from work to home again, like he always does, even if it’s what he tells himself he wants. At home, there’s nothing but shadows and loneliness. He knows that if he goes home, he’ll climb right into bed and hate himself a little more for not throwing together a salad or, fuck, a piece of toast with peanut butter.

He knows he’ll hate himself anyway for going through the drive-thru but at least this way, he’s eating.

Everything feels slowed down. It’s felt that way for a couple of months now and he has the wherewithal to know what it means. He knows what it means, that he can’t seem to eat regular meals, that his eyes are always gritty no matter his sleep schedule, that there’s a gaping goddamn chasm in his chest that makes him a little colder every passing day.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why he barely has the energy to go to work, let alone make it to the gym. It’s a no brainer why he feels like screaming until he shatters his own ears but it still takes so much effort to talk above a whisper.

He’s tired and he’s tired of being tired.

An errant thought crosses his mind, that he should be over this. He’s been dealing with this for years now. It’s cyclical. It happens.

It doesn’t mean that he isn’t laid low, that the prospect of clawing his way out of this hole, again, doesn’t leave him gasping for breath already.

Absently, he switches the song. Once, twice, half a dozen times until he finds another slow song that fits his mood. It’s pretentious and he scoffs at himself for the thought, but he’s full of goddamn melancholy. Yearning with the faintest edge of bitterness.

He doesn’t know where this place is but as his eyes scan for a familiar logo, he sees sporadic decorations. It’s the middle of December but he hasn’t felt holly or jolly in years.

He doesn’t like to think about what that says about him. 

This time of year is his favorite and every fall, he promises himself that he’ll celebrate properly this time. His December will be a fucking winter wonderland, worthy of a Hallmark Special.

It’s been a lie since he was a kid in high school. He’s never brought it up to anyone, this apathy he feels for the most wonderful time of year, and he can’t help but wonder if this is growing up or if this is just his head playing its shitty, cruel jokes on him yet again.

Finally seeing the fast food joint he’d been looking for, he pulls in and orders. He turns the stereo low and watches the windshield wipers in a daze.

The quiet’s oppressive and just a little mean.

With his food in tow-- and he knows as he orders it, that he doesn’t want it, that he wishes he wasn’t quite so human so he didn’t have to think about such things like whether he ate today or not and what that means for tomorrow’s him-- he starts back toward his lonely apartment.

He has half a thought to just keep driving but he’s itching to get home. He thinks about what would happen if he stayed out a couple of hours, just driving aimlessly around. He thinks about driving to the closest big city a couple of hours away just because he can and because there’s nothing waiting for him in sleep except relief.

The thought sets off a warning bell that he doesn’t let himself linger on.

He takes dull note of the light ahead turning to yellow for a beat or three before it goes scarlet. He watches the cross traffic and thinks idly about how easy it would be to run a light one of these days and have everything go dark.

He shudders a little as another thought follows on its heels about how nice it could be.

Passing businesses and homes in equal measure, he’s struck for the thousandth time that’s he’s alive. It’s asinine but he watches a man crossing the street with his dog, sees a coffee shop employee closing up for the night and it’s all so human, so painfully mundane, that it sets a weight on his chest that’s equal parts terrifying and exhilarating.

His head’s a mess. 

His phone lays dark and cold in the passenger seat. He could maybe talk to someone-- wants to talk to one in particular-- but he’d said he had an evening full of grading ahead of him and Alec’s never told his boyfriend about the thoughts that plague him with worrying regularity. They haven’t been together too long, in any case, and Alec’s loathe to tell anyone about his shitty mental health.

Not when there’s nothing to worry about.

It’s not like it was a few years ago, at least. By God, he still has that going for him. He might think about dying with peculiar self-assuredness but he knows he’s nowhere near that imperceptible precipice he hovered on back in college.

As long as that’s true, there’s really nothing to worry about.

The shadows grow long as he turns onto his street and he finds himself sinking, shrinking, trying to melt into the driver’s seat.

He’s a big boy. A grown up. He pays off his credit card every month and manages to eat a vegetable at least once a week and sure, he may want to die, to disappear, to simply fucking vanish with alarming sincerity a few dozen times a day but it’s nothing he can’t handle, nothing he hasn’t been handling for awhile now.

Parking in a surprisingly good spot, considering the time, Alec just sits in the dark car for a couple of minutes as he tries to get the gumption to get out of the car and into the cold. He grabs his food that already leaves a sour taste in his mouth and pockets his phone.

With his head down, he makes his steady way toward the side of his building. He doesn’t see who’s waiting for him but as he looks up and wrestles with his keys, he stops short.

Mouth parting on a silent breath that fogs in the pre-snow air, his thoughts stutter as he sees the one person he’d been aching for all damn day.

“Hey,” he says softly.

“Hey, yourself.” Magnus’s voice is equally soft and as Alec tracks his gaze over his boyfriend, he catalogs the unforgivably informal sweatpants and the hoodie that he’s pretty sure he left at Magnus’s loft last month.

He doesn’t see Magnus returning his onceover with sharp eyes, isn’t aware of the careful breath his boyfriend releases as his concern is validated.

He swallows hard, tries even harder not to look as affected as he feels. “What are you doing here?”

Magnus shrugs, lets his mouth tip into a small smile. “You seemed down when I talked to you at lunch and I finished work early. Thought I’d surprise you.”

Swallowing roughly at sudden lump in his throat, Alec takes a hesitant step closer. It’s only then that he sees the bag Magnus is holding.

Seeing his eyes drop, Magnus’s grin becomes a little bolder and he raises it enticingly. “I have your favorite movie and takeout from that Italian place near me that you love.”

Alec stares at Magnus, not saying anything for a beat or two or six. Magnus doesn’t seem to mind.

No, he just looks back with all the patience of a fucking saint and Alec clears his throat through the sheer emotion rising to the surface. It chokes him. It eases him.

Without thinking too much about it, he closes the distance between them and wraps his arms around Magnus. His own takeout bag knocks against his boyfriend’s shoulder, but neither one pays any attention to it. Alec holds on for dear life and Magnus pulls him closer still.

Alec breathes in Magnus and the ice around his chest thaws just a little, just enough to push him off the edge for another day.

He surrounds Magnus and tells himself just one more day.

He’ll always be able to make it home one more day if Magnus is the one waiting for him. Not his lonely apartment, not the weight of obligation and pretense.

But Magnus, his calm in the storm, his beacon of goddamn light. 

He’ll always come home to Magnus.

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me on tumblr or twitter @carmenlire


End file.
